April 1950 cover of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
In this article, I shall discuss some of the scientific, moral, and political aspects of the [potential] hydrogen bomb…
…The main problem in the release of nuclear energy is not the amount of nuclear energy available—there are plenty of nuclear reactions in which it is large enough—but whether there is a mechanism by which the release can proceed at a sufficient rate. This consideration is almost invariably ignored by science reporters who seem to be incurably fascinated by the equation E=mc2.
(Hans Bethe, professor of physics at Cornell University, was formerly Director of Theoretical Physics at the Los Alamos Laboratories. Dr. Bethe is noted for his discovery of the thermo-nuclear origin of the sun’s energy.)
>Read more: The Hydrogen Bomb
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